
Mayflower and I packed a picnic lunch and drove to El Capitan State Beach in Santa Barbara. We planned to have a romantic picnic underneath the old Monterey Cypress where I first proposed to Mayflower. We paid the $8.00 admission, parked the car, and got the ice chest out of the trunk. Eagerly, we carried it down the path to the water’s edge where the ancient tree has been growing for centuries, with the high tide lapping at its exposed and gnarled roots. When we got to the path’s end, we found this:


